Holiness and temptation (the image of Mary of Egypt in Russian literature)

One of the most famous and artistically perfect models of the Christian hagiography is the Life of Mary of Egypt, a repentant prostitute, who lived in the sixth century. The author of her Life is a Byzantine ecclesiastical writer, who lived in the seventh century. He transformed the traditional linear model of a hagiographic narrative of ''sinful saints''. The self-told history of the moral transformation of this prostitute and anchoress is framed by a story about puffing up ascetic Zosima, which is only another variation of the same theme. The text of the Life of Mary of Egypt is featured with many bright and artistic details, which are often excessive from the position of a hagiographic canon. These changes do not only enhance the basic idea of a hagiographic story (omnipotence repentance), which is common to all such stories, but they also contribute to the popularity of the Life in the Christian culture of the East and the West - from worship to religious folklore. Mary of Egypt was too excessive in committing sins and confessing them. This passionate and seductive image of Mary of Egypt was used repeatedly in world and Russian literature of modern age. Many Russian writers of the 19th-21st centuries addressed to the image of this "sinful saint": from I.S. Aksakov to S. Kopylova (a contemporary musician who performs her self-written songs on Orthodox themes). The first experience of an artistic interpretation of the Life in Russian literature was the poem by I.S. Aksakov ''Mary of Egypt'' (1845). The Russian poet was charmed by the image of the beautiful sinner, which was very far from hagiographic sources. He could not explain the need for repentance of Mary even to himself, that is why the poem remained unfinished. Various elements of the hagiographic text and the image of its heroine was reflected in three of the last great novels by F.M. Dostoevsky, poems by A.A. Blok and M.A. Kuzmin, the ironic "miracle" by Ye.I. Zamyatin and a ballad by S. Kopylova. Mother Maria (Russian poetess Ye.Yu. Kuzmina-Karavayeva-Skobtsova) applied to the Life in her religious self-identification and selection of the individual model of Christian conduct. In spite of the fact that the cult of St. Mary of Egypt appeared nearly 1,500 years ago, her image is still saving features of a carnal, passionate and sinful woman. This feminine image disturbs and frightens women, but attracts men and excites their imagination. The Life of Mary of Egypt strengthens a fundamental myth about repentance and salvation of a great sinner in our national consciousness. Paradoxically, it also reminds us of sweetness of temptations of the earthly life.

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